International Observers Held a Meeting in Upper Chamber of Russian Parliament

The Observer Team at the elections to the State Duma of the Russian Federation discussed the electoral campaign with Deputy Speaker of the Federation Council of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation Konstantin Kosachev and Chair of the Committee of the Federation Council on Foreign Affairs Grigory Karasin.

During the conversation, Konstantin Kosachev noted that every electoral campaign was unique and there were no universal standards of assessing democratic nature of the elections, although some international institutes were trying to establish it.

Senator Grigory Karasin commended the work of the IPA CIS observers in the field of democracy development and elections monitoring and noted the International Institute for Monitoring Democracy Development (IPA CIS IIMDD) for consistently observing the monitoring criteria.

The senator also stressed that the CIS Convention on Standards of Democratic Elections, Electoral Rights and Freedoms adopted in Chisinau about 20 years before established a quality framework for the work of international observers.